Chinese AI tools now rival Anthropic Mythos in vulnerability detection as gap narrows

China's 360 says it has developed tools to match Anthropic's Mythos

BEIJING, June 24 (Reuters) - Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology (601360.SS), opens new tab has developed what it calls a domestic answer to Anthropic's Mythos, it said on Wednesday, casting the U.S. model as a strategic cyber capability that China could not afford to lack. Mythos, previewed in April, is a system that detects software vulnerabilities, but cybersecurity experts have warned that it could supercharge cyberattacks. The U.S. this month ordered Anthropic to suspend exports of a less powerful version of the programme, citing national security concerns. Speaking at the ISC.AI 2026 cybersecurity conference in Beijing, 360 founder Zhou Hongyi unveiled two AI security tools under the banner "Yitian Tulong", a name drawn from a classic Chinese martial arts novel meaning "Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber". Zhou said one tool, "Tulongfeng", was designed to automatically discover software vulnerabilities, calling it "China's version of Mythos", while a second system, "Yitianzhen", was built to automate cyber defence and incident response. "This kind of powerful weapon that can change the landscape of cyber offence and defence cannot be held ⁠only by others," Zhou said in a speech, according to a transcript published by 360. He described vulnerability-finding AI as a national strategic asset that could be used both to defend critical infrastructure and to gain offensive advantage. CYBERATTACKS China and the U.S. have a long history of accusing each other of conducting offensive cyber operations on critical infrastructure. 360's release marks the most high-profile Chinese answer yet to Anthropic's Mythos model, which has triggered alarm in Washington and other capitals, as well as across the cybersecurity industry, over its ability to discover vulnerabilities in sensitive systems. Anthropic said in April that Mythos Preview had found "thousands" of major vulnerabilities in operating systems, web browsers and other software. The U.S. government has ordered the company to suspend exports of a less powerful version of Mythos to destinations worldwide and all foreign nationals due to national security concerns. Zhou argued that China faced a risk of "one-way transparency" if U.S. entities could use Mythos-like models to scan software and critical systems while Chinese companies were denied comparable capabilities. His remarks reflect widespread unease in China at what the country's state media has ⁠called the "unprecedented cyberattack capabilities" displayed by Mythos. Zhou is a member of China's top political advisory body. 360 said Tulongfeng had found 3,432 software vulnerabilities, including 105 confirmed by Chinese authorities. Reuters could not independently verify the claims. Zhou said 360 would not simply copy the U.S. approach, which he described as relying on "the strongest model, the strongest computing power and the strongest chips". U.S. EXPORT CONTROLS Tightening U.S. export controls on China's access to cutting-edge U.S. chips since 2022 have prevented domestic models from catching up to American rivals including Anthropic, though the gap has narrowed since last year. The U.S. has ⁠justified these restrictions by arguing these chips would allow the Chinese military to turbocharge its capabilities with AI. "Objectively speaking, domestic models still have a 20%-30% gap in base capability," Zhou said. "China cannot wait until model capabilities have fully caught up before starting vulnerability discovery, because we cannot afford to wait." Instead, Zhou said his company was taking an "agent" route, combining models with security expertise, vulnerability databases and ⁠automated tools, an approach he claimed only 360 had successfully deployed, giving Tulongfeng "Mythos-equivalent capabilities". "If Mythos is a top-end chip, what we are building is a complete machine that can run stably, work 24 hours a day and make fewer mistakes," he said. "If the U.S. route is to cultivate a genius hacker, 360's route is to organise a professional attack-and-defence ⁠team." Last year, Anthropic said that hackers exploited vulnerabilities in its Claude AI to attack around 30 global organizations. Moreover, 67% of the 1,000 executives surveyed in an IBM and Palo Alto Networks study said they had been targeted by AI attacks within the past year. Zhou, a veteran Chinese internet entrepreneur and outspoken technology commentator, founded 360, which became one of China's best-known cybersecurity companies through antivirus software and later expanded into enterprise and government security. Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Jan Harvey Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Disrupted * Intellectual Property Eduardo Baptista Thomson Reuters Eduardo Baptista is a Senior Correspondent for Reuters based in Beijing, covering China's technology, space, and automotive industries. He has led enterprise and investigative reporting on China's military-linked companies, artificial intelligence and semiconductor supply chains, as well as macroeconomic and industrial policy. Baptista has reported from China for nearly a decade and holds a BA in History from the University of Cambridge.

Chinese cybersecurity company 360 unveils "China's version of Mythos", and Yitianzhen, to automate cyber defense

* At ISC.AI 2026, China's 360 Security Technology unveiled "Yitian Tulong," two AI models for vulnerability discovery and automated defense * Founder Zhou Hongyi described Tulongfeng as the "Chinese Mythos," claiming it found 3,432 flaws, with 105 confirmed by the government * Zhou acknowledged a 20-30% capability gap vs. US models, but stressed building a professional attack‑and‑defense team over reliance on a single "genius hacker" approach A Chinese cybersecurity company recently unveiled two Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, one of which is supposed to be the country's answer to Anthropic's Mythos. Mythos is an advanced AI model that can surface and exploit software vulnerabilities at scale and is currently only available to a couple dozen major US firms because it is allegedly too powerful (and thus dangerous) to be shared with everyone. During the ISC.AI 2026 cybersecurity conference, which was held at the Beijing National Convention Center on June 24, 2026, Chinese cybersecurity company 360 Security Technology unveiled two tools collectively called "Yitian Tulong", Reuters reports. Taking a different approach Yitial Tulong comprises two AI models: Tulongfeng, and Yitianzhen. According to founder Zhou Hongyi, the former is the "Chinese Mythos", while the latter is a way to automate defense and incident response. "This kind of powerful weapon that can change the landscape of cyber offence and defense cannot be held ⁠only by others," Zhou allegedly said during the presentation. Claims about the capabilities of these models cannot be independently verified, and in the case of Yitian Tulong, will probably never be. The company said Tulongfeng found 3,432 software flaws, including 105 allegedly confirmed by the Chinese government. Zhou also discussed taking a different approach compared to the US - a country which relies on "the strongest model, the strongest computing power, and the strongest chips". "Objectively speaking, domestic models still have a 20%-30% gap in base capability," Zhou said. "China cannot wait until model capabilities have fully caught up before starting vulnerability discovery, because we cannot afford to wait." According to Zhou, 360 is building a "professional attack-and-defense team", rather than "just" a single genius hacker: "If Mythos is a top-end chip, what we are building is a complete machine that can run stably, work 24 hours a day and make fewer mistakes," he said. "If the U.S. route is to cultivate a genius hacker, 360's route is to organise a professional attack-and-defense ⁠team." Via Reuters Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Chinese AI lab says it can match Anthropic's all-poweful Claude Mythos at sniffing security bugs

Security researchers say Z.ai's latest model can rival Anthropic's Mythos in one critical area. For the past few weeks, Anthropic's Mythos has been viewed as the gold standard for AI-powered cybersecurity. That lead may already be shrinking. According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, security researchers say Chinese AI startup Z.ai's GLM-5.2 can now match Mythos when it comes to finding software security vulnerabilities, even if it still trails Anthropic and OpenAI in broader reasoning tasks. GLM-5.2 is closing the gap in one very important area As per the report, researchers found GLM-5.2 performs on par with Mythos in identifying software bugs, a capability that's becoming increasingly important as companies race to patch vulnerabilities before hackers can exploit them. The model is also open-source, meaning anyone can download, modify, and run it on their own hardware without relying on a cloud provider. That flexibility makes it attractive for enterprises, but it also raises concerns that cybercriminals could adapt it for offensive purposes. The report is careful to point out that this doesn't mean China has overtaken the U.S. in AI overall. GLM-5.2 still lags behind Anthropic and OpenAI across many general-purpose tasks. But in cybersecurity, where even small improvements can have outsized real-world consequences, the performance gap has narrowed dramatically. According to benchmark data cited by the Journal, GLM-5.2 has even outperformed Claude Opus 4.8 in some security evaluations, while researchers say additional prompting allows it to reach Mythos-level bug-finding performance. The bigger story isn't who wins. It's how fast the gap is closing Interestingly, this all comes at a rather awkward time for the U.S. AI industry. While companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have spent the past few weeks restricting access to their most advanced frontier models over national security concerns, Chinese labs have been racing in the opposite direction by releasing increasingly capable open-weight alternatives that anyone can download and run. The funny thing is that this debate was already playing out in public. Just days ago, Elon Musk predicted Chinese AI labs would probably catch up to Anthropic's flagship Fable 5 by Q1 2027, at least in terms of benchmark performance. Zhipu AI founder Tang Jie quickly pushed back, replying, "won't take that long." Musk then clarified his position, arguing that while China might match Anthropic on benchmarks by then, achieving the same level of "true usefulness" would be a much tougher milestone, crediting Anthropic's focus on practical intelligence. Now, The Wall Street Journal's latest report gives Tang's optimism a little more weight. Instead of talking about coding benchmarks, it suggests GLM-5.2 is already matching Anthropic's Mythos at finding security vulnerabilities, arguably one of the most valuable real-world AI applications today. That doesn't suddenly make China the leader in frontier AI, but one thing is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: the AI race is no longer a comfortable lead for the United States.

China cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology claims to have developed tools to match Anthropic's Mythos

Anthropic Mythos, previewed in April, is a system that detects software vulnerabilities, but cybersecurity experts have warned that it could supercharge cyberattacks. Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology has developed what it calls a domestic answer to Anthropic's Mythos, it said on Wednesday, casting the U.S. model as a strategic cyber capability that China could not afford to lack. Mythos, previewed in April, is a system that detects software vulnerabilities, but cybersecurity experts have warned that it could supercharge cyberattacks. The U.S. this month ordered Anthropic to suspend exports of a less powerful version of the programme, citing national security concerns. Speaking at the ISC. AI 2026 cybersecurity conference in Beijing, 360 founder Zhou Hongyi unveiled two AI security tools under the banner "Yitian Tulong", a name drawn from a classic Chinese martial arts novel meaning "Heavenly Sword and Dragon ⁠Saber". Zhou said ⁠one tool, "Tulongfeng", was designed to automatically discover software vulnerabilities, calling it "China's version of Mythos", while a second system, "Yitianzhen", was built to automate cyber defence and incident response. "This kind of powerful weapon that can change the landscape of cyber offence and defence cannot be held only by others," Zhou said in a speech, according to a transcript published by 360. He described vulnerability-finding AI as a national strategic asset that could be used both to defend critical infrastructure and to gain offensive advantage. Cyberattacks - U. S and China China and the U.S. have a long history of accusing each other of conducting offensive cyber operations on critical infrastructure. 360's release marks the most high-profile Chinese answer yet to Anthropic's Mythos model, which has triggered alarm in Washington and other capitals, as well as across the cybersecurity ⁠industry, over its ability to discover vulnerabilities in sensitive systems. Anthropic said in April that Mythos Preview had found "thousands" of major vulnerabilities in operating systems, web browsers and other software, Reuters reported. The U.S. government has ordered the company to suspend exports of a less powerful version of Mythos to ⁠destinations worldwide and all foreign nationals due to national security concerns. Zhou argued that China faced a risk of "one-way transparency" if U.S. entities could use Mythos-like models to scan software and critical systems while Chinese companies were denied comparable capabilities. His remarks reflect widespread unease in China at what the country's state media has called the "unprecedented cyberattack capabilities" displayed by Mythos. Zhou is a member of China's top political advisory body. 360 said Tulongfeng had found 3,432 software vulnerabilities, including 105 confirmed by Chinese authorities. Reuters could not independently verify the claims. Zhou said 360 would not simply copy the U.S. approach, which he described as relying on "the strongest model, the strongest computing power and the strongest chips". U.S. Export Controls Tightening U.S. export controls on China's access to cutting-edge U.S. chips since 2022 have prevented domestic models from catching up to American rivals including Anthropic, though the gap has narrowed since last year. The U.S. has justified these restrictions by arguing these chips would allow the Chinese military to turbocharge its capabilities with AI. "Objectively speaking, domestic models still have a 20%-30% gap in base capability," Zhou said. "China cannot wait until model capabilities have fully ⁠caught up before starting vulnerability discovery, because we cannot afford to wait." Instead, Zhou said his company was taking an "agent" route, combining models with security expertise, vulnerability databases and automated tools, an approach he claimed only 360 had successfully deployed, giving Tulongfeng "Mythos-equivalent capabilities". "If Mythos is a top-end chip, what we are building is a complete machine that can run stably, work 24 hours a day and make fewer mistakes," he said. "If the U.S. route is to cultivate a genius hacker, 360's route is to organise a professional attack-and-defence team." Last year, Anthropic said that hackers exploited vulnerabilities in its Claude AI to attack around 30 global organizations. Moreover, 67% of the 1,000 executives surveyed in an IBM and Palo Alto Networks study said they had been targeted by AI attacks within the past year. Zhou, a veteran Chinese internet entrepreneur and outspoken technology commentator, founded 360, which became one of China's best-known cybersecurity companies through antivirus software and later expanded into enterprise and government security.

Chinese AI is now on par with Anthropic in terms of cybersecurity: report

Chinese artificial intelligence models have reportedly caught up to top US systems in cybersecurity - a shift that could add pressure on the White House as it works to nail down its domestic AI policy. Security researchers said a new model released this month by China's Zhipu AI, also known as Z.ai, is on par with Anthropic's flagship Mythos model in some bug-finding scenarios. While the Chinese model - known as GLM-5.2 - still trails U.S. giants Anthropic and OpenAI in other areas, researchers said the overall performance gap has greatly narrowed, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, a flood of high-powered, cheap-to-use Chinese AI models are quickly drawing customers across the US. Even companies including Microsoft are considering integrating the systems on their platforms, which could shift the competitive balance across the tech industry. According to OpenRouter, which provides access to more than 400 AI models, GLM-5.2 ranks among the 10 most-used AI systems. Cybersecurity company Semgrep said the model outperformed Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 in some benchmark tests. Researchers also found that, with additional prompting, both Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.2 can match Mythos in finding software bugs. On Wednesday, Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology unveiled a new bug-finding tool called Tulongfeng, saying it performs on par with Mythos. The advances have raised concerns among national security officials and corporate executives. "China is making sure that the gap becomes smaller and smaller over time," Lior Div, chief executive of cybersecurity company 7AI, told the WSJ. "Genuinely impressed, almost shocked, at how good GLM 5.2 by @zai_org is at coding," Guillermo Rauch, the CEO of US-based AI firm Vercel, wrote on X earlier this month. "This changes things." AI's growing capacity to identify software vulnerabilities has increased pressure to use the technology to patch security flaws before hackers can exploit them. Researchers have warned that failing to do so could lead to what some have dubbed "bugmageddon." Zhipu's GLM-5.2 is an open-weight model, meaning anyone can download, run and modify it on their own hardware without oversight. That's in contrast to models built by Dario Amodei's Anthropic or Sam Altman's OpenAI. While open-weight models give organizations greater control, it also gives hackers access to powerful tools. "This kind of powerful weapon that can alter the landscape of cyberwarfare can't remain solely in American hands," 360 Security Chief Executive Zhou Hongyi said at a cybersecurity conference in Beijing, according to the Journal. Zhou said China would face unacceptable risks if US organizations could use advanced AI models to scan critical Chinese networks while Chinese companies lacked comparable capabilities. China's progress comes as the US government has imposed restrictions on releasing advanced AI models. On Friday, OpenAI said it was limiting access to its newest model, GPT-5.6, citing security concerns raised by administration officials. The company said its current case-by-case review process is a temporary measure while a recent executive order on AI security and model oversight is implemented. One of Anthropic's latest general-purpose models has also remained offline for more than two weeks after the Trump administration ruled that no foreign entity or individual could use it because of security risks. Anthropic shut down access to comply with the order. On Friday, the administration restored limited access to a related Anthropic model, Mythos 5, for some users. Critics have argued that the administration's actions toward a leading U.S. AI company are counterproductive, particularly as it has allowed exports of AI chips to China despite the country's rapid AI advances. "Banning Fable while selling chips China needs to develop its own version is a gift to China," said Saif Khan, a distinguished technology fellow at the Institute for Progress who worked on export restrictions during the Biden administration. Khan added that the US should maximize use of Mythos and similar models to strengthen its cyber defenses while it has the advantage. Critics of the White House's approach have also argued that it has not done enough to limit the use of Chinese open-weight models from companies such as DeepSeek and Zhipu, which have become popular with US businesses. In another sign the administration is looking to support domestic open-weight AI developers, the Pentagon recently announced a deal with Reflection AI for classified applications, along with several similar agreements. At the same time, AI users said US efforts to restrict access to increasingly capable cybersecurity models have fueled concerns that important AI tools could become unavailable. "It is incentivizing companies across the globe to use cheaper but very capable Chinese open-weight models, while at the same time undermining the U.S. AI industry," said Niels Provos, a researcher who previously led security teams at Google and Stripe. "I don't understand it."

China's 360 says it has developed tools to match Anthropic's Mythos

BEIJING, June 24 (Reuters) - Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology has developed what it calls a domestic answer to Anthropic's Mythos, it said on Wednesday, casting the U.S. model as a strategic cyber capability that China could not afford to lack. Mythos, previewed in April, is a system that detects software vulnerabilities, but cybersecurity experts have warned that it could supercharge cyberattacks. The U.S. this month ordered Anthropic to suspend exports of a less powerful version of the programme, citing national security concerns. Speaking at the ISC.AI 2026 cybersecurity conference in Beijing, 360 founder Zhou Hongyi unveiled two AI security tools under the banner "Yitian Tulong", a name drawn from a classic Chinese martial arts novel meaning "Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber". Zhou said one tool, "Tulongfeng", was designed to automatically discover software vulnerabilities, calling it "China's version of Mythos", while a second system, "Yitianzhen", was built to automate cyber defence and incident response. "This kind of powerful weapon that can change the landscape of cyber offence and defence cannot be held only by others," Zhou said in a speech, according to a transcript published by 360. He described vulnerability-finding AI as a national strategic asset that could be used both to defend critical infrastructure and to gain offensive advantage. CYBERATTACKS China and the U.S. have a long history of accusing each other of conducting offensive cyber operations on critical infrastructure. 360's release marks the most high-profile Chinese answer yet to Anthropic's Mythos model, which has triggered alarm in Washington and other capitals, as well as across the cybersecurity industry, over its ability to discover vulnerabilities in sensitive systems. Anthropic said in April that Mythos Preview had found "thousands" of major vulnerabilities in operating systems, web browsers and other software. The U.S. government has ordered the company to suspend exports of a less powerful version of Mythos to destinations worldwide and all foreign nationals due to national security concerns. Zhou argued that China faced a risk of "one-way transparency" if U.S. entities could use Mythos-like models to scan software and critical systems while Chinese companies were denied comparable capabilities. His remarks reflect widespread unease in China at what the country's state media has called the "unprecedented cyberattack capabilities" displayed by Mythos. Zhou is a member of China's top political advisory body. 360 said Tulongfeng had found 3,432 software vulnerabilities, including 105 confirmed by Chinese authorities. Reuters could not independently verify the claims. Zhou said 360 would not simply copy the U.S. approach, which he described as relying on "the strongest model, the strongest computing power and the strongest chips". U.S. EXPORT CONTROLS Tightening U.S. export controls on China's access to cutting-edge U.S. chips since 2022 have prevented domestic models from catching up to American rivals including Anthropic, though the gap has narrowed since last year. The U.S. has justified these restrictions by arguing these chips would allow the Chinese military to turbocharge its capabilities with AI. "Objectively speaking, domestic models still have a 20%-30% gap in base capability," Zhou said. "China cannot wait until model capabilities have fully caught up before starting vulnerability discovery, because we cannot afford to wait." Instead, Zhou said his company was taking an "agent" route, combining models with security expertise, vulnerability databases and automated tools, an approach he claimed only 360 had successfully deployed, giving Tulongfeng "Mythos-equivalent capabilities". "If Mythos is a top-end chip, what we are building is a complete machine that can run stably, work 24 hours a day and make fewer mistakes," he said. "If the U.S. route is to cultivate a genius hacker, 360's route is to organise a professional attack-and-defence team." Last year, Anthropic said that hackers exploited vulnerabilities in its Claude AI to attack around 30 global organizations. Moreover, 67% of the 1,000 executives surveyed in an IBM and Palo Alto Networks study said they had been targeted by AI attacks within the past year. Zhou, a veteran Chinese internet entrepreneur and outspoken technology commentator, founded 360, which became one of China's best-known cybersecurity companies through antivirus software and later expanded into enterprise and government security. (Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Jan Harvey)